MAREAS

MAREAS for four amplified voices and four-channel tape (1980)

This work is based on two poems by Pablo Naruda, which are about the ocean. The principal poem is ‘Mareas’ (‘Tides’) and inserted into it is ‘El Mar’ (‘The Sea’). Both of these texts are concerned with the Pacific Ocean, which not only flanks the whole of Chile, but also links it to the Californian coast which has been a source of inspiration to Souster on other occasions: Driftwood Cortege for computer-generated tape and the related Sonata for cello, piano, seven wind instruments and percussion.

The tape part in Mareas makes use of what at the time were advanced sound processing techniques made possible by voltage-controlled technology and by the cross-synthesis of vocal and natural sounds by means of the vocoder.